


April Showers

by Semi_problematic



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mental Breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-10 23:05:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16464080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semi_problematic/pseuds/Semi_problematic
Summary: After losing someone, staying alive is the real punishment.





	April Showers

**Author's Note:**

> When raindrops fell   
> Down from the sky   
> The day you left me   
> An angel cried 
> 
> \- Ariana Grande   
> Raindrops

The cell was damp and silent. Food sat on the floor in front of him. Negan sat on the small, wooden platform that was his bed. Blankets and a handmade mattress covered it. The mattress wasn't much. Just blankets sowed into more blankets in order to give him something to lay on. Rick told him to be thankful he even got a bed. Negan only laughed. Being thankful was impossible without Carl. Rick should understand that. 

"Eat." The only word that had been said between them in a half an hour. Michonne had taken it upon herself to watch him, make sure he ate and drank. She didn't understand that this wasn't a protest. Negan was just tired. The only person that would kill him was being kept away. Starvation was his best way out. "Now, Negan."

"How did he die?" Negan whispered, looking at his hands. It had been a month since they locked Negan up. Carl died about a month and a half ago. "I cared about him, ya know, he meant something to me, too." Negan looked up at her. Tired. So, so tired. "Carl didn't deserve it."

"He didn't." Michonne replied. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her eyes narrow and trained on Negan. Trained on the only thing that seemed to matter to anyone. Negan and his misery. "But you don't deserve to talk about him. He was good, Negan, better than you, better than all of us."

Negan nodded. He knew that. Every day he would tell Carl that. "I didn't deserve him, but I still miss him. You wouldn't understand." She wouldn't. The love they had for Carl was so, so different. "I just miss him."

"Then you can live with that. Without this war... things could have been okay. Hell, Negan, maybe if you didn't bash Glenn and Abraham's skulls in, he would be alive. Maybe if you did one thing different-"

"Stop."

"No!" Michonne shouted, her fists falling to her sides. "You get to be as miserable as the rest of us! You get to ask yourself "why" and constantly question every choice you made from the time you met him until the time he died! Because god knows..." She took a deep breath. "Maybe that one thing could have changed it all."

Negan looked at his hands. Instead of hos stomach feeling empty, it felt sick. If he tried to vomit, all he would do would be gagging. He hadn't eaten in days. It would kill him sooner or later. "When we first met... I knew he was special."

"Don't start with that. We all knew he was special. But no, you don't get to say it. You almost bashed his skull in, Negan. He almost became another fucking walker and that is on you!" Michonne was standing inches from the cell door. If Negan wanted to, he could reach through and kill her. But he didn't. "Maybe if you would have, he wouldn't have suffered!" 

"I didn't kill him... I..."

"You were a coward. None of us killed him. But this world and the shit we put into it, all the good and all the bad, that killed him." Michonne closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. "We couldn't even protect the children, Negan. And that is on all of us. He was trying to be an adult-"

"I loved him." Negan whispered. For a moment, he hoped Michonne didn't here. "We... we were in love. We were happy." He closed his eyes, picturing Carl's face. He did that every day. The risk of forgetting him was too scary. "Every day on the radios... he would call and ask about my day-"

"I don't care." Michonne replied. "We lost the same child. That does not make us friends or family. That does not make what you have done okay. All it means is that we are both stuck with losing another person."

"I didn't want to love him." Negan continued. "It killed me. Loving him. He was so good and so... so young. I tried to stop but you can't control your feelings."

"And your actions?" Michonne asked. "If you loved him, why did you attack us? His family? Why did you set his home on fire, Negan? Don't you dare think you are the victim."

Negan shook his head. "Please. I never wanted to hurt him. I just... I wanted my feelings gone. When I got him on his knees, I wanted to kill him. Not to punish anyone but to just make it stop-" He winced at the thought. "I... I already loved and lost one person. I didn't need another."

"Did you think about that when you killed Glenn? Abraham? Or when you took Daryl and tortured him? Or let your men kill our people? No. Because you-" She pointed at him through the bars. "You are selfish."

"How did he die?" Negan repeated. She was kicking him when he was down. Not that Negan blamed her. He knew what he had done was bad. He knew he would rot in hell for it. But Lucille kept him going. And so did Carl.

"He shot himself." Michonne replied. Cold. Angry. Resentful. "I... I told him that I would do it. But he didn't want me to. He didn't want me to lose another boy. Not after what I have gone through. Even when he was dying he was merciful."

"Was he alone?"

"Yes." Michonne was no longer looking at him. She was looking out the small window, blinding herself with the sun that pooled through it. "He forced Rick and I out. Didn't want us to see it. But we heard it. I heard it. I still hear it. Every fucking night."

Negan nodded. "I'm sorry."

"Are you?" Michonne replied. "Are you really sorry? Or do you just like pretending you are so you look a little more human?" She didn't give him time to reply. "You're less human than the things that bit him." Her fingers curled around the bars and gripped them tight. "You infected him more than that disease ever did. You did this." She shook the bars. "It is all on you."

Negan bowed his head in shame. Not once did he ever want to hurt Carl. He tried and tried. It was selfish, attempting to kill Carl so he could continue to live a numb, empty life. "I need to see him. I need to pay respects."

"No."

"I love him. And he loved me. I didn't deserve it but he did. I need to say sorry, I need to fix this. Please... just a few minutes." Negan looked up at her. "You can have as many people with us as you want. You can beat me, kill me, but please, let me see him." 

She was silent.

"You lost people. You lost your son, both of them. You needed to say goodbye." He didn't wait for her to agree. Negan knew he was right. He almost always was when it came to things like this. The emptiness and the anger. "Let me say goodbye. I need it, Michonne. Five minutes. Less if you want-"

"Hands behind your back." Michonne picked up the key and unlocked the cell. Handcuffs hung on the wall, but she picked those up, too, locking them around his wrists. She tugged him by the chain that connected the two cuffs, a gun hanging from her hip. "Eyes on the ground and silent. Understood?"

Negan nodded. Fresh air filled his lungs. He never thought he would feel it again. Carl would never feel it again. The sickness filled his stomach once more. Dozens of people lined the road, watching Negan. Michonne announced it over the radio as they walked out of the eight by eight prison. The hell that he had been trapped in. Part of Negan expected someone to kill him, a bigger part of him wanted it. But no one did. After losing someone, staying alive is the real punishment. 

The graveyard was small, but many crosses littered the grass. Small graves made Negan's heart ache. Children. Innocent. Loving. Michonne was right. Their job was not to survive. It was to protect the ones who could not protect themselves. And they failed, god, did they fail.

"He's that one over there." Michonne shoved him towards it. "Judith is picking out new flowers and rocks for it. The storm washed them away." There was silence. "I will be back in three minutes. You will go back to your cell and eat. He would want you to live." 

Negan nodded, kneeling down. His knees dug into the damp grass. It had rained a lot since Carl died. Even the sky opened up and weeped for the loss of a boy. A beautiful, beautiful boy.

"I miss you." Negan wept for Carl too. Each and every day. "I want to ask about you, but I know there is nothing to say. You died. Thats final, but living... living with it is so hard. Without you. Your smile and your laugh and your smart ass comments." Negan wiped his eyes. "It should have been me. Any of us. But it wasn't. It was you. And I am so sorry for that."

The sky opened up and rain poured out. The world cried with Negan. 

"I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you." Negan curled up in the mud. Six feet under was his boy. Worms and maggots were eating him. He was rotting like the walkers outside. "I love you so much." His chest heaved as he sobbed. "I'll see you soon, baby. I will, I promise." He dug his nails into the mud, clawing it away.

Piles of mud began to stack up. Rain poured and Negan cried. 

"You left me." Negan screamed. "You left me." He slammed his fists into the mud. "You fucking left me. You said you wouldn't. You said when you're in love you never leave." Negan was sinking into the mud. "But where are you now?"

"Negan."

Negan perked up. He couldn't hear the voice. All he heard was his name and the thunder. "Car-"

"Time's up."

He was yanked to his feet and pulled out of the graveyard. Mud dripped from his body and so did his tears. "Make sure you get blue flowers." Negan whispered. He felt numb again. "He loved blue."


End file.
